One of the most beautiful and poignant moments of my life took place a few years ago during a conversation with a young woman who lives at Ananda Village. She has a loving, selfless nature, and as a teenager, had to bear the sorrow of losing her mother to cancer.

We were traveling together in India with a small group. Her sweetness and quiet support throughout the journey touched me deeply, and one day I said spontaneously: “Thank you for being my daughter. I never had one.”

She instantly replied: “Thank you for being my mother. I lost mine.”

As though time had stopped, we stood looking at each other, filled with the poignancy of what our words meant. Those to whom we are close in this life are likely souls with whom we have shared love before. All of us have played many roles in many lifetimes, and are drawn together again and again by bonds of love. This young woman and I might have been mother and daughter before, perhaps with the roles reversed.

In that moment we also understood that there is no need for feelings of longing, regret, or grief. God’s love for us is eternal, and can reach us in unforeseen ways. If we experience the loss of a loved one—mother, father, child, friend, or spouse—the true, divine source of love can always express itself through a different form.

I once read an inspiring thought: that there is a God-shaped hole in the heart of each of us. Until it is filled, this emptiness is the true source of all longing. Though we try to fill it with human love, eventually we learn that everything in this life is ephemeral. Everyone we know and love will pass. God’s love alone is eternal and unchanging.

In Autobiography of a Yogi, Yoganandaji describes the death of his beloved mother when he was still a young boy. She had been in Calcutta making arrangements for the marriage of his elder brother, Ananta, when he and his father received word that she was gravely ill. Filled with foreboding, they anxiously traveled from Bareilly by train to reach her.

“When we reached our Calcutta home,” he wrote, “it was only to confront the stunning mystery of death. I collapsed into an almost lifeless state. Years passed before any reconciliation entered my heart. Storming the very gates of heaven, my cries at last summoned the Divine Mother. Her words brought final healing to my suppurating wounds:

“‘It is I who have watched over thee, life after life, in the tenderness of many mothers! See in My gaze the two black eyes, the lost beautiful eyes, thou seekest!’”

This experience helped form who he was to become and the mission he would fulfill. For Yogananda was a premavatar—an incarnation of Divine Love. What he brought to the world was a glimpse of his own experience of the Divine Mother’s presence, and the gift of eternal, changeless love. On another occasion, She appeared to Yogananda and said, “Always have I loved thee! Ever shall I love thee!”

In today’s turbulent world, filled with divisiveness and fear, we can strive to discover that same wellspring of God’s love within ourselves. As we begin to touch it, we, too, can become sources of comfort, hope, and reassurance to others.

When my friend and I had the exchange I described above, we realized that the Mother’s love can be found not only in one form, but in many. In truth, we can ultimately find it everywhere, for it is omnipresent.

In Metaphysical Meditations, Yoganandaji offered this prayer:

“O Fountain of Love! Make me feel that my heart is flooded by Thine omnipresent love.”

Once we experience even a taste of this divine love, we begin to realize what we can truly become: channels for the love that is at the heart of all creation. What better goal could we have in life than to find our own highest potential—to become beacons of light and love to all!

In divine love and friendship,

Nayaswami Devi

Listen to Devi as she first reads the blog, then expands on its meaning and messages for readers with behind-the-blog commentary. Subscribe to the podcast or download the audio recording by right-clicking here. Or listen to it here (9:59):

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